


It Comes And Goes In Waves

by ScarTissue



Series: Its The Fallout That Gets You [1]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, TW: Suicide, like wow I didnt mean to write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 16:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarTissue/pseuds/ScarTissue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His thoughts are a wave that swallow him, a tide he can't fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Comes And Goes In Waves

Thomas Blackwell hadn't expected much of Burgess. 

 

His uncle had hintingly warned him not to, in his sporadic letters sent far over the sea.  
The blacksmith shop he ran with a man named Overland was "quaint in the politest of terms," or so he'd been told.  
But it was the only place he had to go, so Thomas packed up, said goodbye to the city he'd lived all his seventeen years in and headed across the water, praying his uncle was merely a humble man.

 

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

 

Thomas decides about two minutes after arriving that at some point, he will be leaving. 

 

"Thou calls this a shop?" He had asked his uncle in a strained tone, gesturing to the glorified hut set deep in dark mud in front of him. Thomas narrowed his eyes as the man grins nervously and shrugs. "Well, I-"  
"Hey! My shop's splendid."  
His uncle's face relaxed as Thomas turned around to meet the unfamiliar voice, deep and somewhat indignant. A man- no, a boy leaned in the doorway of the smithery, a smirk rising on his finely featured face. Thomas was taken aback. Blacksmiths weren't supposed to be that slight. Nor that pretty. 

 

He stamped that thought out with a vengeance.

 

The boy began walking towards the pair, and extended his hand for Thomas to shake.  
"Methinks thou would be workless without it."  
Thomas blushed lightly at his words, and shook his hand quickly. Electricity cut through his arm where the brown haired boy touched him.  
He might've held on too long.  
Thankfully, his uncle cut in just then.  
"Thomas, this is my business partner Jackson Overland. He took over for his father John, remember?"

 

The old man looked unfairly tickled at the situation, his strong willed nephew cut to size by someone 3 inches shorter than him, and despite his baritone at least the same difference in age. Thomas shot him a glare and turned back to Jackson, who was still smirking.  
"Pleasant to meet you." He ground out, embarrassed.  
Jackson's smile widened with amusement at his discomfort, his deep brown eyes dancing with mirth.  
A sinking feeling hit him in the stomach. He'd just earned himself a slave driver.  
"Likewise."

 

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

 

He didn't know that part of him could even hurt.

 

Thomas lay (more like collapsed) on half the small table in the corner of the shop, utterly exhausted. His meager break was just that, but God knows it saved his life more than once this month. He was only two weeks into what regularly was a years long apprenticeship, and Thomas was starting to suspect he wouldn't live to see it's end. 

 

Back breaking was too light a term for this two man operation, everyone working in intervals so the shop never closed, except on sunday. Jackson had turned out to be the more mellow of the owners. Uncle William was a devil of a boss, and never around at that. He'd confronted Jackson about it early on, when the man had slept straight through breakfast and lunch on a tuesday. Jackson had just shook his head, appearing to have had this conversation, or asked the question himself once.  
"William keeps the books and orders, and I-" he paused, "Thou and I perform the labor. I'm not good with my letters. So tis fair, to a point." 

 

Thomas had hmmed, not satisfied. Jackson didn't look old enough to be finished with learning his letters, still all elbows and knees and ears. The boy slung a hammer like it was a feather though, pounding out strips of iron quicker than Thomas thought he ever could, though he easily had twelve pounds more force behind him.

 

Thomas lifted his head off the the dirty table, now staring at Jackson's back as he did the very thing he'd been reminiscing on. The teenager's pale skin was stretched tight across his back as he leaned over the anvil, tapping the hammer along a cooling rod, preparing a horseshoe ordered last week. Thomas could count all the notches in his spine. 

 

The dark haired young man stood abruptly from his resting place, and took the hammer from Jackson. His brown eyes were surprised but thankful, and he smiled gratefully as he slumped over to the table.

 

He was fast asleep when Thomas turned around, face slack in a peaceful dream.  
Thomas found he didn't need the extra help until much later.

 

  
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

 

They begin to talk late into the night, more than once forgetting their shift had ended until sunlight is streaming through the window. Thomas lets Jackson fall asleep on his shoulder one chilly morning, and revels in the smell of his hair, the perfect way he lays in the crook of his neck.

 

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

 

Thomas may not have loved Burgess, but it was better than the alternative. 

 

He was aware that it was supremely odd, a man of seventeen apprenticing of all things, but he didn't have anywhere in the world to run but here. Staying in London had been out of the question. Going back was even worse a fate. 

 

He could never look at the city the same again, after his parent's death. There was too much filth, too much disease and too many memories of loving mothers and doting fathers fading into sick, weak people rotting in a city that simply had no love for them.

 

He saw it in his dreams some nights, the hovels of the poor slums and the extravagant sprawl of the over privileged. How dare they, how fucking dare they rub their luxury in the faces of the starving and the plague, and he wanted to scream and cry because there was just nothing he could do-

 

"Thomas! Thomas, wake up. You are fine. Thou were just dreaming. Calm thine self."  
Jackson was looking down at Thomas with concern etched in his even whiter than normal face, his hands gripping Thomas' fairly broad shoulders to shake him awake. Thomas swallowed hard as he was caught in Jackson's dark gaze, contrasting his own pale green eyes. Light filtered in from the small window, making strands of red stand out in Jackson's messy hair. He smiled wide, showing two straight rows of breathtakingly white teeth, as Thomas' eyes cleared and became alert. He huffed a laugh in relief. 

 

"You scared me!" Jackson hoisted him out of his chair, pushing him towards the door. Where did he find the strength?  
"Go sleep now. This place only breeds nightmares."  
Thomas nodded tiredly, never taking his eyes off Jackson. 

 

"Oh no." He thought while stumbling back to the house, Jackson waving goodbye from the shop's doorway behind him.  
"Oh no."

 

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

 

He's really not sure when he stopped fighting it, whatever it was. He had heard the pastor thunder fire and brimstone every sunday, describe hell and exactly why he was going there until his skin crawled.  
But damned or not, Thomas always had a bad habit of playing with fire.

 

-{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

 

Jackson was perplexing, Thomas soon decided. 

 

The boy (and he was a boy, he learned, only fifteen. Fifteen.) was always doing something. He worked dawn til dusk, the bags under his eyes sometimes as black as Thomas' hair. He slaved in the smith all day, then went home to bunt, fish, cut grass and chop wood and generally exhaust himself until he near collapsed and yet.  
And yet.  
And yet he was the kindest person Thomas had met (not that that meant much).

 

Jackson didn't just provide for his family.  
He took care of them.  
He bought his mother's favorite pie from the baker every monday even though it cost him his own lunch, and never was a stomach heard growling. 

 

Emma, his younger sister, was seen hanging around the shop at least three times a week. No matter the rush order or ugly, armed client (seriously where did they find these guys) Jackson promptly dropped everything and hopped out the window when she called.  
Thomas never asked why, but he had a guess. Jackson did not bear the marks of a well loved child. Thomas could trace it in the stretch of his skin across his ribs, the set of his shoulders, like there was something unfathomable upon their narrow planes. He could watch it writhe when he told Jackson to rest, that he could take care of it. Nobody should look surprised to be helped.

 

Emma, on the other hand, had been spoiled with attention. She loved her brother just as fiercely as he loved her, maybe more. Nothing burdened her posture, but her eyes could cut a man open. Thomas had been on the wrong end of her glare more than once, as he leaned over her to hand Jackson a tool or brush the ash off his shirt. She'd always yank Jackson out the door, going on about hopscotch or tea or some irrelevant thing, casting him a dirty look all the while.

 

He couldn't blame the kid for being intuitive.

 

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

 

Emma called Jackson "Jack."  
It suited him. Shorter, less pretentious. More... Fun.  
And much more intimate.  
Thomas tried it laying in bed that night.  
"Jack." He said it twice more, rolling the syllable around his mouth. It fit like candy, and tasted like snow and spearmint. Thomas wanted Jack to hear him say it.  
He wanted Jack to know his name was safe with him.

 

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

 

He was falling in love like he lost himself in his mind, too deep in to know it until he couldn't breathe.

 

He was falling in love with dreams and waking hours, for  
Jackson danced behind his eyes every night, and lived just out of his reach every day.

 

He was falling in love with long fingers and broad palms, sticking out of skinny arms. Hands that shaped molten iron into whatever he willed, and held a small girls own like it was the most precious glass in the world.  
Thomas would hold Jack that way, should he ever get the chance.

 

He was falling in love with feet that were too big not be awkward at times, perpetually bare and almost blended into snow, just like the rest of him. 

 

He was falling in love with pale skin that didn't fit so much as it clung, scattered with small white scars he wanted to kiss softly. 

 

He was falling in love with mischievous smiles and wide grins, bright white teeth in perfect lines.

 

But most of all he was falling deep into warm brown eyes that were simultaneously strong tea, the wood of his families oak table that held up his childhood world, and irrevocably, unfortunately, his home.

 

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

 

Thomas is resigned about the whole thing until the last day of December.

 

Of course he'd seen Jack looking at him, caught him out of the corner of his eye only to look away quickly and blush. But that was.... It just wasn't what he saw in the mirror when he thought of Jack. 

 

Until it was.

 

They're in the wagon, William driving up front as he and Jack lay under a tarp in the bed of the cart, crowded into each other to escape from the biting cold. Of course they go on a supply run five days after Christmas. He can't really bring himself to complain when Jack rolls over and clutches him, bringing blessed body heat and putting them as close as they've ever been. 

 

Thomas wrapped his strong arms around Jack, highly aware of how close they were.  
He smirked, both amused and trying to remain unaffected.  
"Little chilly, Jackson?"  
"Be silent." Jack mumbled, burying his face in Thomas' chest. He relaxed into the embrace, more comfortable than he'd been in a long time.  
Thomas found himself finally warming up, and drifting off to sleep as the wagon bounced along shoddy dirt roads. He was awakened by the feeling of Jack's head moving against his chest.

 

"What?"  
Jack tilted his head up, blushing a pretty pink on his creamy skin.  
"My name. It's Jack. You can- You may call me Jack."  
Jack was determinedly not looking at him, now blushing furiously and had his hands fisted tightly in Thomas' shirt.

 

Thomas slowly brought up a hand from Jack's back, and tilted his chin up so he could look him in the eye. He scooted forward to touch their foreheads together. He could smell Jack's breath from here. 

 

"May I?" He inquired, staring straight into Jack's eyes, wide and dark. He hoped Jack knew what he was asking.  
Jack gazed back, unabashed for the first time.  
"You may." He breathed.

 

Thomas leaned even further, sliding a hand through Jack's brown hair and one arm around his waist. He closed his eyes as their noses brushed.  
"Jack."  
Thomas said his name like a prayer. Jack whimpered, and Thomas opened his eyes as the boy surged forward to kiss him soundly.

 

He wasn't falling in love, he was in love and there wasn't any stopping it.  
He no longer wanted to.

 

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

 

The next three months are easily the best of Thomas' entire life.

 

He and Jack spent every moment together anyway, but now Thomas can reach out and touch. 

 

"None have a right to be this happy," he thought once, lying with Jack (his Jack) in a sunny clearing the forest, the boy lovingly combing tender fingers through his jet hair, while he dozed in his lap.

 

He was right, of course.

 

\- {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

 

Thomas lost himself in his mind's waters and only emerged when he noticed he couldn't breathe.

 

"It could be simple," he muses, as he walks towards the lake with hot tea for Emma and Jack. (Mrs. Overland had dispatched him with the beverages, when he'd come to get them all for Easter service. Catherine had smiled mischievously and told him not to tell. He loved her immediately.)  
He could just stay here, it'd be easy enough. His uncle would retire someday, and Thomas was a prime candidate to inherit his half of the shop. And, of course, he would need a partner. Thomas smiled even wider as his plan came together. This could all be so simple.  
He really could have all of this, this scene in front of him for the rest of his life. Jack happy and beaming at him, working with him, his pale and lovely face the first sight of his day forever on-

 

But its not that simple, it's never that simple and all it takes is a sickening crack of ice to remind him.

 

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

 

Thomas doesn't know how long he stays there, searching and pleading to a God who's never given him anything, to find something. He cannot stop. He can't accept there is nothing.

 

Theres nothing there but ice and water and cold and trees, he fucking head is spinning like a top what the hell wheres Jack oh God, God wheres Jack dammit, God dammit God fucking dammit why isn't there anything-

 

Theres nothing he can do or that can be done, so he just screams and screams and screams.

 

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

 

His thoughts are a wave that swallow him, a tide he can't fight.  
He doesn't have the breathe to struggle.  
Thomas thinks he sees the sky through murky water, brown flecks in it the color of Jack's eyes, and just surrenders.

 

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} 

 

He's aware Emma finds him the next evening.

 

The girl is anything but gentle, dragging him by his collar through the snow with strength beyond her frame.  
He holds back that connection from forming with all his might, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his fist.  
He doesn't want to hurt Emma, its not her fault.  
So he goes back to sleep.

 

The next time he wakes, Thomas is shirtless and warm, swathed in too scratchy sheets under a ceiling that is not his own. He swallows back a sob when he breathes in, trying to orient himself.  
He can still smell him in the bed. 

 

Thomas is tempted to pass out again, and try not to wake up for a long, long time. He closes his eyes to try and imagine Jack is beside him, sleeping quietly while Catherine and Emma attend services. It'd just take a moment...  
Thomas' eyes drift shut.  
Just a moment...  
Memories of cracking ice and cold winds slam into him like a storm and Thomas jolts upright, ready to scream because oh, oh my god Jack until he spots Emma next to him. The little girl looks hollow to the core, dead and angry eyes trained on him as he gasps for breath. She is holding two bottles in her small, pale hands. 

 

Emma simply levels her gaze on Thomas for a few more minutes, the moonlight illuminating her newly gaunt face hauntingly. She rises slowly, and approaches him like he's a cornered animal. The girl speaks clearly, annunciating sharply.  
He can literally see her holding herself together.  
"This," she holds up one bottle, made of brown glass,  
"will save your life. But this," she brings up the other, "will take it."  
Emma sets the bottles on the table next to Jack's bed, and walks towards the door. She stops in the threshold and turns to look at Thomas. The girl has aged years in hours.  
"I know you love him," she chokes out, "I know you love him and I'm giving you choice because of that." She draws in a deep breath, and lets it out like something heavy.  
"I know you love him.  
And one bottle will be gone when I get back."

 

The girl walks out into the night, and leaves Thomas alone in the dark. 

 

Thomas reaches a tired arm across the bed, careful not to sniff, and grasps both vials in one large hand. He turns them over and over in his palm, the smooth glass contrasting his calloused and scarred skin. He isn't thinking of which would taste better, or which would be easier to swallow. All that runs through his mind is images of goofy smiles and bad prank, ash covered shirts hanging off a gangly frame, pale hands with his heart in them, the warmest eyes looking at him love, love love.

 

Thomas lets a few tears slip down his cheeks, willing to now that its sinking in like poison. This bed's smell will fade. These shirts and dirty socks will be burned instead of washed next week. Jack won't ever grow into his ears. 

 

"I just want him back." He whispers, looking out the window. The moons just a rock in the sky, but its been there when no God or person was for him. Its as good an altar as any.  
He's just so afraid.  
"I just want him back."

 

"Do you mean that?"  
Thomas twists his head to stare at the corner of the dark room, a shadow bleeding out of it into the light. A tall, tall man with grey skin regards at him with an earnest expression that doesn't reach his yellow, sharp eyes. The man is cloaked in black that seems unending.  
"Do you truly mean that?" He repeats, encouragingly. 

 

Thomas uncaps both bottles. The tops fall noiselessly to the floor, and he slowly, slowly brings both to his lips, never taking his eyes off the corner.

 

 

A smile breaks on the man's face like glass shattering.

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a thousand different versions of this pairing, and I just might post them.


End file.
